Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty
2Witness the world how worthy to be praised:
3The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire
4In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised;
5That being now with her huge brightness dazed,
6Base thing I can no more endure to view;
7But looking still on her, I stand amazed
8At wondrous sight of so celestial hue.
9So when my tongue would speak her praises due,
10It stopped is with thought's astonishment:
11And when my pen would write her titles true,
12It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment:
13Yet in my heart I then both speak and write
14The wonder that my wit cannot endite.
Notes
1] A series of eighty-eight sonnets, published in 1595 and probably written between 1592 and 1594 during the poet's wooing of Elizabeth Boyle. Back to Line